Woser gave him a quick smile. 'Too many years on the frontier, greeting the envoys of kings and queens, have made my tongue as oily as that of a palace hanger-on.'
His eyes darted toward an approaching sentry, the last he had to inspect, a tough-looking man of close to forty years burned a crisp brown from many years in the sun. The man halted before his commander and stood at attention, his eyes fixed on some far-off point. Looking stern and competent, Woser examined clothing, weapons, and physical well-being.
While Bak waited, he rested his elbows on the thick mudbrick wall and looked out across the desert. The tawny plain stretched as far as the eye could see, its sandy blanket torn here and there by dark ridges and knolls of protruding granite. The stiff westerly breeze stirred the desert surface, filling the air with fine sand, coloring the sky a pale yellow and cloaking the sun with haze. The distinction between earth and sky was lost in the distance, where individual features blended and blurred. A sweaty slick of fine dust coated Bak's body and he could taste the desert on his tongue, minute bits of parched and stale rock carried on the wind from far-off lands. His wrists itched beneath the wide bead bracelets he wore. He yearned for a swim, and mercifully he might now have the time.
The sentry strode on, and Woser joined Bak at the wall. 'I like to believe nothing can pass by me unseen in this garrison.' His face was shadowed with worry and self-reproach. 'How did I fail to see a plot against AmonPsaro?'
Bak eyed him with something less than sympathy. 'Did you actually tell Huy and your other officers to stand in my way?'
Woser had the grace to flush. 'I made it clear I thought the slayer had done us all a favor. I went no further.' 'In other words, you made it easy for them to justify their failure to help, their unwillingness.' Bak heard the accusation in his voice, knew he must drop the matter or risk alienating once again an officer whose cooperation he badly needed.
'How many men do you believe are involved?' Woser asked.
'One, if the mute child's sketches are to be believed. And I'm more inclined than ever to think them true.' Bak could not prevent himself from adding, 'Especially now that I've verified your alibi and Nebseny's and know for a fact you're both innocent. The idea of a conspiracy has always troubled me.'
Woser turned away, his shoulders hunched, his hands locked behind his buttocks, and strode the few paces up the walkway to the corner tower. Bak stared at the commander's back, suddenly doubting himself, wondering how one man alone could hope to slay a king, a man always surrounded by guards and lackeys. Could I be mistaken? he wondered. Did I sort out one conspiracy of silence, leaving another yet to be found?
Woser strode back, his expression unhappy yet resolute. 'I've known my staff officers for many years, Lieutenant, and I call each and every man my friend. But if you wish, I'll give you a private place and send them to you one by one. I give you leave to ask them what you will. Use the cudgel if you must.'
Any doubts Bak might have had about the commander vanished altogether. 'With Amon-Psaro's caravan stalled in the desert, I've a day's reprieve. Perhaps the gods. will smile on me and I can narrow my suspects to one before he marches into Iken. If not, I fear I'll have to accept your offer.'
Chapter Fifteen
'Amon-Psaro should never set foot inside these walls.' Bak spoke as if voicing the thought would make it a real possibility. 'There are too many rooftops, too many unoccupied and ruined buildings.'
Standing halfway up the open stairway that connected the commander's residence with the battlements, he scowled at the city laid out below, a geometric patchwork of white rooftops, narrow sun-struck streets, and small, shadowy courtyards. Several of the blocks looked as if a gigantic mouse had nibbled away random chunks of mudbrick and plaster, leaving a broken wall here and a collapsed roof there. Heat radiated from the flat white roof below him, drying the beads of sweat forming on his flesh. The stench of the watery depths wafted from a nearby rooftop, where a neighbor's morning catch of fish had been laid out to dry.
Kenamon, standing at the base of the stairs with Woser, Imsiba, and Nebseny, shaded his eyes with his hand and studied the tall citadel wall looming over the mansion of Hathor and the small figure of a sentry patrolling the battlements above the temple. 'The walkways atop those walls bother me,' he said, apprehension turning his voice querulous. 'They look an ideal place from which to fire off a quiverful of arrows.'
'None but the most reliable men will patrol the battle ments.' Woser's face was set, determined. 'He'll not be threatened from that quarter, I can assure you.'
Bak plunged down the stairway to the roof. 'You'd do well to station a few archers up there,' he told Nebseny, 'men with stout arms and a long reach. Men you'd trust with your life.'
The young officer flushed, not yet accustomed to the sudden change in his attitude toward Bak, or Bak's toward him. 'I've just the men: twenty archers and a sergeant newly arrived from the faraway land of Naharin. You can be sure they've no grudge against the Kushite king.'
'Perfect.' Bak walked to the edge of the building and looked down on a grayish striped cat sprawled in the shade of a doorway, suckling five fuzzy kittens not yet old enough to see. He and the other officers had identified one precaution that would avert the need for many of the others, but they needed Kenamon's consent to break a religious convention. They had been skirting around the issue since they had gathered in Woser's office, and Bak still wasn't sure how best to ask. 'I doubt the prince is in danger…' His eyes darted toward Imsiba. '… but you must guard him well, you and our men.'
Imsiba had seldom looked so somber. 'We'll stay with the child through all the hours of day and night, my friend. He'll never be left alone.'
'It's Amon-Psaro I'm worried about,' Woser grumbled, careful not to look at Kenamon. 'We've taken every precaution, yet gaps remain in our security.'
'As there always will be unless…' Nebseny let his voice tail off and glanced at Bak, dropping the burden fully onto his shoulders.
Bak could avoid the issue no longer. 'Amon-Psaro will be safe in the island fortress. We've nothing to worry about there. The weak link in our chain of defense-and, believe me, my uncle, it's very weak-is the journey from the island to the harbor and the march through the city to the temple. Back and forth day after day for as long as the prince is ill, the king's life will be at risk.'
Kenamon's mouth tightened. 'What are you asking of me?'
From the resolute look on the old man's face, Bak could tell he had already guessed what the officers wanted. 'Will you allow us to build a shrine on the island and house the lord Amon there?' His voice grew passionate with conviction. 'I beg you, my uncle, to agree. Then the king and his son can be together day and night, safe from threat, without the need for the twice-daily march along streets difficult if not impossible to secure.'
The elderly priest, his face grave, shook his head. But instead of voicing an immediate rejection, he clasped his hands behind his back and paced the length of the rooftop, his head bowed in thought.
A snarl sounded in the street below. Bak glanced around, saw an orange tom skulking up the lane toward the striped cat and her helpless kittens. She faced him, her back arched, the fur on her tail standing on end, snarling to protect her brood. The tom crept on undeterred, his tail whipping back and forth, bent on stealing one of the tiny, blind creatures. Bak scooped up the nearest object to hand, a stone spindle, and flung it at the wall above the tom's head. He leaped upward, twisting around in midair, and scooted away.
'I'm sorry, my son.' Kenamon, his face grim and unhappy, patted Bak's shoulder as he would a favored puppy. 'The lord Amon must remain in the mansion of Hathor.'
Why? Bak wanted to ask. Is a shrine not good enough now that he's a great and mighty god? 'We'll recruit the most accomplished carpenter in Iken to build it and the most talented goldsmith to sheathe it. Set up in a private corner, the lord Amon will be safe and well protected from man and beast and the elements. He'll be more comfortable there, for all the fortress will be his, not one small room in a temple he must share.'
Kenamon gave him a fond smile. 'You speak with a golden tongue, my boy, but I was told by the first prophet himself that the god must dwell with the lady Hathor.' Muttering a curse under his breath, Bak glanced at the other officers and Imsiba. Woser looked disgusted, the Medjay and Nebseny helpless to come up with a better idea. He knelt at the edge of the roof and stared into the lane below, giving himself time to think. There had to be a way around that order. The kittens were alone, he noticed, and only three remained. Where was the mother? Had the
